Did Justin Bieber’s Believe Tour Really Sell Out in an Hour?

Justin Bieber reached a career milestone when he sold out the world's most famous arena – Madison Square Garden in New York City -- in a half-minute. Equally as impressive, the entire Believe tour supposedly sold out in an hour. However, there may be a scandal afoot with the Biebs, who sports major wings during his live show, as a report has surfaced that he may only have released a small amount of tickets to sell and that he is scalping his own tickets.

According to Nashville's News Channel 5 (via Huffington Post), by the time tickets went on sale to the public, there were not that many available for purchase. With 14,000 seats fillable at the Nashville venue, only 1,001 were put on sale for the general public, so of course those would move like syrup-slathered hotcakes. It was a small amount for Beliebers to gobble up.

But what about the 12,999 other tickets? Well, 6,000 were reserved for American Express customers as part of an exclusive pre-sale, while 3,000 more were put aside to members of the Biebs' fan club, which has dues.

Also, 14 tickets are on sale at TicketsNow, a site that sells tickets at a premium. These tickets are priced at $246 a piece. These seats were never made available to the public for purchase, which indicates that they were purchased by the singer's team to keep the extra revenue out of the hands of scalpers.

"A lot of artists do this," a concert industry insider told Huff Po. "Their perspective is they would rather make the money than give it to scalpers. It's not unusual to hold back the best seats and sell them at marked-up prices calling them 'VIP' tickets."

So while the Biebs' tour may have sold out on the quick, the numbers don't appear to have been accurately portrayed.